


The Chemicals Between Us

by awake0rdreaming



Series: Missed Thominhoweek Prompts [1]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7543897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awake0rdreaming/pseuds/awake0rdreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt written for thominhoweek but was too late to submit</p><p>Prompt: There's a first for everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chemicals Between Us

He was twelve when he had his first crush. He was sitting on the grass field by himself behind the school, waiting to be picked up by his nanny. He had been new to the school, entering in a grade where people had already created tight groups and with a quiet personality like his, it didn’t do him any favours in making friends. 

Sitting with his head down, Thomas briefly considered doing some homework while he waited, but that thought quickly went away as he caught sight of a boy of Asian descent from across the field. He was laughing at something, surrounded by his friends who were poking each other and joking beside him. 

Thomas gazed at the group of friends, wishing he had some of his own. In his last school, he was in the ‘popular’ group, had a good set of friends; not the kind that would talk behind his back. They were accustomed to his quiet demeanour and didn’t try to force him into conversations. He had grown comfortable knowing things weren’t expected out of him. 

After his mom got transferred to Greendale though, all that had changed. He was the newbie—or ‘Greenie’ as he had been called a couple times—with silence as company, and it wasn’t the comforting kind anymore. 

His eyes kept drifting back to Minho, who clearly seemed like the leader of the group, or at least the most boisterous of the group. Thomas wasn’t quite aware when he started developing his crush on Minho, just that one day it happened and then wouldn’t go away. Almost like he could sense eyes on him, Minho turned around looking directly at him. 

Thomas quickly ducked his head and kept it there the remainder of the time, playing with blades of grass on the hill he sat on. Minho and his friends sat in the playground just at the foot of the hill, but Thomas kept his head bent in case one of the others caught him staring in their direction.

Five minutes later, Clara his nanny came down and sat with him. “Ready to go?”

Thomas was so relieved to see her, he literally tripped in his enthusiasm to leave. Slightly red-faced, he hoped no one saw his clumsiness—especially Minho. 

— 

High school seemed to be conspiring against him, Thomas decided after the first day of sophomore year. It had been pure luck that Minho never had classes with him in middle school, except for p.e. which didn’t require a lot of interaction. Minho was the athletic type, playing forward or always in the fray of things.

Thomas was happy in the sidelines, and the only thing he _was_ good at was sprinting. Cross-country only arrived once a year in summer, so his interaction was pretty minimal when it came to Minho. Freshman year: same thing, and the school was big enough to get away with not having classes together. 

Now though, Minho was in at least two of his classes on the first day, one of them included Science. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact the teacher decided to change up the seating arrangements the students had picked and Thomas was the lucky guy—insert sarcasm here—that got to be Minho’s science partner. 

After an exchange of polite hellos that lapsed into awkward silence, he sincerely hoped it would get better in time. Ten minutes into class, Minho turned to him suddenly, and Thomas started to panic inwardly. 

“Are you okay, dude?”

“What? Ye—yeah I’m fine.”

“You sure? You look like you’re going to be sick.” Minho whispered. Thomas wanted to bury his head in his cubby hole and never resurface. His expression must have twisted into the discomfort he was feeling for Minho to jump to that conclusion. Shit. Shit!

“Uh..no. I’m…okay. I’m okay.” he repeated lamely, not looking at his crush. He saw Minho nod in his peripheral vision. That was the end of it and when the bell rang, Thomas picked up his books and shot out with the rest of the class, eager to get out. 

He slowed down when he turned the corner and sighed. Reaching his locker, he dumped his books inside not caring to see if any of the pages folded as they fell down with a clang.

He had one day, finally admitted to Clara of his crush on Minho. Her advice had been to get to know him as a person. Then either it was good or it was bad, and if it was bad..then the crush would end.

Thomas highly doubted he could one, actually open his mouth without making a complete fool of himself, and two, find enough flaws in Minho to get over him.

“That bad a day?” A voice asked from around his locker door and Thomas turned to see Newt standing beside him, eyebrows raised. 

“He’s my science partner.” Thomas mumbled. He didn’t even have to explain who he was talking about. Newt was well aware of who he was referring to, having sat beside Thomas’ grumbling in middle school.   

“Tough luck,” Newt said sympathetically. “Or…”

“There’s no ‘or’ Newt. I’m screwed. The universe hates me.” Thomas slammed the locker door and Newt rolled his eyes at Thomas’ dramatics before walking beside him towards the exit. 

—

During the second week, they had to do an experiment in class. Before that, Thomas and Minho had simply nodded to each other before taking their seats. There had been some moments where he would ask for a pencil or Minho would make a sarcastic comment about the teacher under his breath, which would get a quiet laugh from him. Small things. 

This though. This required actual conversation.  As the teacher explained what they were supposed to achieve, and gestured for them to start, Thomas swallowed down his nerves and took a deep breath, turning towards Minho.

“Okay, so—“

“Do you—“

Thomas and Minho started talking at the same time. They stopped and looked at each other smiling. “You were saying?” Minho spoke first. 

“Um,” Thomas willed himself not to blush seeing as Minho’s attention was on him. “I was wondering which part you’d like to do?” he gestured in front of him, “the observing or the writing?”

“We can both do it?”  Minho suggested, leaning on his arms which pushed him slightly into Thomas’ space.

“Do it?” Thomas asked, mind going straight to the gutter. 

“Yeah,” Minho said, “We can individually look into the microscope and discuss our findings, then write it down.”

“Okay,” Thomas nodded. “You can go first.” He watched as the other boy put his eye to the microscope and dimpled exclaiming at how cool this was. Thomas smiled at his partner’s reaction, thinking for the umpteenth time, how fucked he was. This crush on Minho wasn’t going anyway any time soon. It was getting worse.

—

“Does this look okay?” Thomas turned to Newt wearing a black jacket over a red shirt. 

Newt rolled his eyes, sprawled on Thomas’ bed, arms stretched on either side of him. This was the third outfit Thomas had tried on. “It’s a high school party, thrown by rebellious seventeen year olds, shank. And I’m pretty sure we got invited by accident. Or Minho was just being nice. Pick one.”

“I _know_ that!” Thomas huffed. “I just—“ He turned to Newt, “You could have said no.”

Newt raised his eyebrows sitting up, “So could you.” Thomas gave him a look. “Yeah yeah I know; he still affects you,” he sighed, “Ready to go?”

“I guess.” 

Arriving to the party the two of them quickly realized this was an invite only party, with only a few people attending.  It would be pretty easy to spot them. “Uh..on second thought, we don’t have to—“ Thomas turned around when Newt gabbed his shoulders.

“Nope. We’re here and we’re going in.” 

—

Thomas had just stepped into the house, when a girl with short black hair grabbed him. “Hey, you! You’re coming with me.”

“What?”

“We need more people for the game. Come on!” She dragged a protesting Thomas towards the living room. Thomas looked over his shoulder at Newt to rescue him, but Alby had come over to chat with the blonde, which left Thomas to be towed away by this girl.

It was onto when he sat down in the circle, that he noticed the bottle in the middle with a circle of people around it. Oh no. Nononono! This—he— Thomas’ thought was cut short when his eyes fell on his crush who was smiling as he sat diagonally across from him.  Thomas shyly waved at him. 

He no longer stammered while talking to Minho which was a huge improvement. There was a hierarchy in high school and not surprising at all, Minho was in the popular crowd. They continued to have some classes over the years, but it was one of those things where you only chatted in class. Minho got invited to parties all the time. Thomas didn’t. That's just how things were.

Thomas sat in the circle, only half paying attention to the game, mostly dreading his turn and who he would share his first kiss with. He hoped it wouldn’t be Gally or Newt who also got roped into playing the game. How awkward to would be kissing your best friend or Gally—just on the basis that it was Gally. The guy wasn't half as bad as he was making it sound, but Thomas would just rather not... 

He was so lost in thought, it took a nudge from his neighbour to realize everyone was staring at him. His face flushed realizing everyone knew he hadn’t being paying attention. Looking in front of him, his heart thudded in his chest when he saw the bottle pointing to him. 

“Uh…” Thomas’ eyes flew to movement on his right, as Minho sat down in front of him. “Hi,” he heard himself say faintly before soft warm lips met his. He was too shocked to close his eyes but it was over pretty quickly anyways.

He sat dazed for a couple seconds, hardly believing that actually happened. As the game continued and his turn came closer, he made a quick excuse to get out of the game and retreated to the kitchen, where there were the least amount of people.

No one tried chatting him up which was a relief, because he freaking out. Minho kissed him. Minho had actually kissed him! Given it was a dare or a game..whatever, but his first kiss was with his crush. What were the chances? He couldn't recollect if he had responded or not. It had barely lasted a second. 

Caught up in his thoughts again, he jumped when someone tapped his shoulder.

“You are too easy to sneak upon shank,” Minho smirked as Thomas flushed with embarrassment. “Glad you could come.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, trying for casual.

Minho fidgeted a little in front of him, “I hope this doesn’t make things awkward between us or anything.”

“No no, its fine. It was pretty decent for a first kiss.” Thomas said, nerves making his response honest.

For a second Thomas thought he was going to make fun of him, but Minho said, “It was my first kiss too.”

“Really?”

Minho laughed at Thomas’ surprise. “Why’s that hard to believe?”

Thomas ducking his head, didn’t respond. He thought it was obvious why he was surprised. He was sure people would line up for a chance to kiss one of the hottest people in their grade. Minho could have his pick with any one of them.

Minho undeterred by his lack of response, continued. “So..we’re good then?”

“Yeah,” Thomas nodded quickly, looking at his feet before returning his gaze back to Minho. “We’re good.”

They stood awkwardly in front of each other for a second or so. Then Minho stepped closer to Thomas, making him raise his eyes to meet his. Thomas found himself idly wondering why Minho was suddenly in his personal space, when the other boy answered it next second, leaning in for a kiss.

This was the last thing he had expected to happen when Minho approached him. What did this mean? Did..did Minho like him too? Why?Despite his shock, Thomas’ eyes slipped shut, responding in kind only seconds behind. 

The kiss was kind of amazing—Minho’s lips were so soft against his—and the longer they stayed like that, the more he didn't want to part from the other boy.   

 

Eventually Minho stepped back, letting his hand fall away from the nape of Thomas’ neck. He didn’t even recall when Minho's hand could have gone there.

“Good that.” Minho was smirking at his expression which he had no doubt, made him look like an idiot with his eyes wide, and mouth gaping a little, and left Thomas standing in the kitchen by himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo Lovelies! It's not my best work, but it turned out okay so I wanted to share. I wasn't expecting to the write one this long. It's the prompt I connected to the most so I thought, why stop with only one first? :) Hope you enjoy the read. Cheers!


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